Want farmers’ views? Call them up!
A new report presents smallholders’ opinions on our work in Bangladesh. Phone calls kept the costs down and got lots of interesting answers. High scores line up alongside some room for progress.
«This is the first time we’ve used the Lean Data approach», comments Yuan Zhou, our Head of Agricultural Policy. «Instead of traditional in-person interviews, the survey team contacted all the farmers by phone». The responsible agency, 60 Decibels, has now published its final report*. This focuses on the work of our Farmers’ Hubs (FH) in Bangladesh, specifically in supplying smallholders with high-quality seedlings.
«We’ll be going through all the findings in detail», says Farhad Zamil, our Country Director for Bangladesh. «But some key insights are already apparent». Smallholders’ satisfaction with the Hubs is high. Reasons include the new tools and technology available there to smallholders, and the good results achieved in the field. «We got a ‘Net Promoter Score’ of 40, which indicates good satisfaction and loyalty», Farhad continues. «84% of the 265 surveyed farmers said the FH was enabling them to access particular offers for the first time; 77% reported that they are now earning more money from their crops».
Abdur Rouf leads ICT, Monitoring & Results Measurement in our Bangladesh team. He comments: «We owe these good results to innovation and the dedication of FH entrepreneurs. Hats off to the young entrepreneurs, network managers, and field staff who so enthusiastically deliver quality services to farmers».
As well as numbers, the report also quotes some ‘Farmer Voices’ (page 5). Most seem very satisfied with the Hubs.
«However, we didn’t run this survey just to collect praise», Farhad adds. «We were also looking for a room for improvement, and farmers made several suggestions. We’re now examining the scope for implementing these.»
In addition, 60 Decibels benchmarked our survey results against those of other organizations. Here, too, it’s clear that the Syngenta Foundation has some way to go. «At first sight, it looks excellent when 78% of farmers say their quality of life has improved», Yuan Zhou declares. «But the benchmark shows this is nothing special – we’re about the same as the South Asia average».
Qualitative findings of the type in this survey are a valuable addition to our usually more quantitative Performance Measurement. But there, too, we are working on a step forward from our first-ever PM Report in 2019-20. Lean Data work with 60 Decibels also continues: this year’s focus is on Indonesia.
